The effect of exogenous gibberellin and auxin on the dominance between the axillary buds of pea (Pisutn sativum L.) cotyledons

The interaction of GA and IAA in apical dominance was investigated in an experiment in which first of all an IAA paste was applied to the cut areas formed by the decapitation of epicotyl apices of pea seedlings, followed after one week by the application of a 0.25 % GA paste. The latter treatment was able to overcome the growth inhibition of cotylary buds induced by a 0.03 % IAA paste, but not that caused by 0.06 and 0.12 % IAA pastes. The correlative function of a root in the renewal of the apical dominance can, to some extent, be directly simulated by exogenous gibberellin, as has been demonstrated in the experiment with decapitated pea seedlings deprived of one cotyledon, on which the growing axillary of the amputated cotyledon was decapitated. In this case the axillary of the remaining cotyledon grows in the plants where the root has been left, but in those deprived of the root, there appears a serial of the amputated cotyledon (Dostál, Biol. Plant. 9 : 330, 1967). When GA was supplied to the plants treated in this way, the coty lary of the remaining cotyledon grew even in the plants deprived of the root.